That's what you get when you glorify European imperial expansion and call it "exploration" without changing the core mechanics.
this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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Omg, and the end result is a more militarized federation, billions dead on both sides, the dominion being in basically the same position it would have been had they just listened in the first place and stayed on their side of the wormhole which was part of the treaty ending the dang war. The only benefactor long term was the Federation who's uneasy allies and enemies had exhausted their forces either fighting or being occupied during the war is clearly coming out a galactic hegemony after. The Dominion War was the war on terror.
War, what is it good for? 
I think the Dominion trying to set their borders at the very edge of the wormhole counts as a territorial grab. The Alpha Quadrant powers had already been trading with several people from the Gamma Quadrant for over a year before they even heard of the Dominion, but the Dominion wants to keep them out of space they haven't even claimed yet. It was a demand to respect their right to conquer, not their actual territory. It's somewhat reasonable for the Federation and other races to tell them to fuck off and that they'll continue trading with people in the Gamma quadrant who want to trade with them, plus they didn't trust that the Dominion had any intention of actually leaving them alone, which seems reasonable given their actions.
I think an interesting take on the Dominion War is that it's ultimately the fault of bad diplomacy, of all sides pursuing maximalist demands and taking hostile postures without trying to come to a reasonable settlement. Gives it a World War One flavor.
They were first mentioned in s2 e7 when those violent jerks made some deals so sell quark wine or whatever. Those guys say they control all trade in the gamma quadrant. From what the show leads us to believe, they contr.the whole thing.
I found an interesting quote from Ronald D. Moore. During the run of the show, Star Trek staff were answering fan questions online. One of those questions:
Why does the Federation keep Invading Dominion space?
The Dominion does not own the entire Gamma Quadrant. We had explored the GQ for two years before encountering the Dominion, so it's not as though the wormhole opens up in their living room. There are other races in the GQ that are not part of the Dominion and the Ferengi at least have established trade with some of them. When the Dominion told us to stay out of GQ, it was if China told the US to stay out of the Yellow Sea. China is the big boy in this neck of the woods, and you better take their warning seriously, but at the same time we have trading partners and allies there and hey, freedom of the seas and all that.
A very telling look into the mind of the showrunner.
So it seems like people at the time did notice the same things as you did, and came to a similar conclusion from the text. However, the text is still ambiguous about where the Dominion borders are. This quote does explicitly state that the wormhole is outside those borders, citing that trade and exploration in th eGamma Quadrant had been happening for a couple of years prior to the war (which is in the text). I think your argument is otherwise sound, and there's definitely blame on the part of the Federation and other Alpha Quadrant powers in terms of taking the situation too lightly. They should have been way more interested in figuring out what the geopolitical landscape on the other side of the border was like before they sent trade missions and colony ships.
That being said, the Dominion responded to incursions with asymmetric hostility, escalating at every opportunity. First contact with the Federation was a Vorta spy pretending to be a refugee of the Dominion, trying to get information out of Sisko. The Jem'Hadar captured Sisko, and the Federation sent ships to go look for him, ending in the Jem'Hadar suiciding one of their ships into a Federation ship that was trying to flee. Only incidentally do we hear that the New Bajor colony had already been destroyed, and its population massacred.
I'm inclined to @HarryLime@hexbear.net's interpretation, especially the part about the Dominion not having an intention to leave them alone. Definitely the result of bad or no diplomacy all around, but I think it's a bit generous to think that the Dominion wouldn't have been hostile from the jump. That's just how the writers wrote them: as violent, amoral, xenophobic imperialists. Yes, the Federation et al should be more careful about wandering through a magic door to the other side of the galaxy and start measuring curtains and getting huffy with the locals, but the response from the Dominion on every level was way overboard. The Dominion should have announced themselves properly at some point before there was essentially already a war happening, and the Federation should have mostly stayed on their side of the wormhole until they could reliably establish relations with whomever was on the other side. I think war would have happened anyway, with the specific inciting events in the show equivalent to Archduke Ferdinand getting shot and causing everyone to lose their minds subsequently (not to lean too far into the World War One comparison).
They were first mentioned in s2 e7
Yeah, that's over a year
Those guys say they control all trade in the gamma quadrant. From what the show leads us to believe, they contr.the whole thing.
OK fair point, but if I remember correctly, the Dominion were introduced when the Jem'Hadar ships destroyed a Galaxy Class ship, and I think the Vorta brainwashed Sisko for a bit (I don't remember it perfectly, but I think this was the case). And then they made bunch of threats, just a ton of hostility right off the bat. I really think their diplomacy was shitty, and they should have opened by sending an embassy or something.
They're spoken about earlier. There's those refugees thst wanna live on bajor and a couple mentions here and there. The Jem Hadar thing was set off by Jake Sisco wanting to go explore the gamma quadrant for a junior high school science project, this doesn't speak to much if any respect for people who may already lay claim to the area. Seems odd that the second group of guys we see from the gamma quadrant are under dominion control if their territory isn't at least real close to the wormhole. You'd tend to assume the people living closer to it would go through sooner than those who'd need to take a longer trip.
There's those refugees thst wanna live on bajor and a couple mentions here and there.
The fact that those refugees felt safe near the wormhole indicates that they didn't regard the territory around it as Dominion territory, indicating that the Dominion didn't have a legitimate claim to it at the time.
The Jem Hadar thing was set off by Jake Sisco wanting to go explore the gamma quadrant for a junior high school science project, this doesn't speak to much if any respect for people who may already lay claim to the area.
And you don't think that starting a battle that leads to the destruction of a ship that houses over a thousand people is a bit of an overreaction to a couple of adolescent boys doing a school project? Seriously, there's just no way to write the Dominion's actions as reasonable here, even if their grievance was legitimate. The Alpha Quadrant had been peacefully exploring and trading with the Gamma Quadrant for over a year before the Dominion suddenly shows up and murders over a thousand people. That's a horrible political misstep by the Dominion that was certain to provoke hostilities. They should have sent some Vorta over to the major AQ powers as ambassadors to make their case first.
Decided to post about this in stsr trek reddit. Apparently destroying New Bajor, a colony in Dominiom space, without sending a diplomat first made it the fault of The Dominion. I'm pretty sure the onus of diplomacy is on the people who want to establish a colonial presence in your sovereign territory and not.the other way around. Like, if China decided Wyoming was there's and just brought dudes in, the expectation wouldn't be to send a diplomatic envoy.
The racism showed up fast
Dude is acting under the presumption that colonists have rights in the place they're invading
Also interesting how the Shape Shifters were previously oppressed by Solids, but had to go imperialist in order to protect themselves and live their own life.
I'm gonna point out that the original allies against the Dominion, the Klingons, were fighting an aggressive war against the weakened Cardassians as the Dominion showed up.
The last two seasons of DS9 feels a bit like NATO shit.
Also if intervention was justified because the Dominion subjugated it's citizens, what does that say about how the federation'a lack of action during the Bajoran occupation?
If I recall, the whole thing why the federation and cardassian cold war didn't really go hot (like sure they were skirmishes here and there) was because Starfleet was still firmly in recovery mode from Wolf-359 at the time. Which eventually led to the demilitarization zone between the federation and cardassia, and which caused the federation and cardassian colonists in said dmz to start their own war themselves.
The whole thing with Bajor ended up falling into that because again, Wolf-359 really fucked Starfleet up.
Starfleet probably shouldn't have been so complacent beforehand anyway. They were getting pretty pompous prior
So you mean they should militarize harder in an off chance that an intervention of snarky and irresponsible being with godly power will bring them into the conflict with previously unknown and militarily vastly superior genocidal entity?
I probably wrote that very sloppily, but I was more pointing out the federation had always been on some incredibly shaky ground morally speaking.
Edit: the charitable interpretation is that Wolf-359 was the reality check to get Starfleet to stop using the Miranda class.
Harder than early tng? Yes, but that doesn't take much.
I also forgot something else, during this time in trek there were some let's say very interesting interpretations of the prime directive. So if the federation and Starfleet knew about the cardassian's brutal occupation of Bajor before Wolf-359 even happened, I wouldn't be surprised one bit if they publicly took issue with it and privately didn't do much because it would be "messing with an internal matter of another nation". Which is one of the things the PD prohibits doing.
Edit: Good god do I want to go on a rant at how useless the prime directive is on a morality level.
but had to go imperialist in order to protect themselves and live their own life.
Yes but I don’t think the show portrays this as a positive or even neutral thing. The Founders’ rule is brutal and even the slightest resistance is put down with an iron fist. The Founders have this almost almost irrational fear based on this history - or at least, even if it’s rational, they are recreating their own trauma on a thousand (or whatever) other worlds.
The opressed became opressors. Dominion is zionist entity. Dominion't
Halp, someone posted something wayyyyy too Invovled to quickly look into:
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The borg should.just assimilate them and they can be happily part of a hive mind together. I'd defect. Infinite technology and there are still space liberals fighting space mercantileists. Fuck that.
im going to have to watch ds9 again i think, i'm usually attuned to the anti-protagonist framing but i might've been genuinely asleep when this shit happened (star trek as sleep aid gang gang)
Similar gang except every second star trek series I rewatch is ds9 and so I watch ds9 5 times a year or so. I've watched ar least two episodes of star trek every night for over ten years now. I get off work at like 10pm and my schedule is have a drink, chain smoke weed, post work shower, eat, read, trek, sleep.
I fucking love DS9, I really wish they
ds9 spoilers
Didn’t make sisko the arbitrary chosen one(such s stupid move imho) and the whole arc with the pah wraiths was just nonsense in my opinion. It would have been interesting perhaps if the pah wraiths did not manifest in the world and Dukat was just leading on vibes?
I feel like the Pah Wraiths were just filling time, and the had to do something to close the Kai Winn AND Gul Dukat story arcs.
Referring to near infinite number of species as "the solids" reveals great trauma; a trauma felt and shared amongst the Dominion in the great link.
Babylon 5 is better
They're both great.